title: Exhaled nitric oxide and carbon monoxide in respiratory diseases.
abstract: Breath tests have gained increasing interest in recent years mainly driven by the unmet clinical need to monitor airway diseases and to obtain information on unravelled aspects of respiratory disorders. A prototype of such measurement reaching clinical significance besides its use as a research tool is the measurement of exhaled nitric oxide (NO). It took hardly more than a decade after the discovery that exhaled breath contains NO for this measurement to be approved for clinical practice to monitor anti-inflammatory treatment in asthma. Recent studies demonstrate that using exhaled NO measurement to guide anti-inflammatory treatment in asthma may help clinical decision making. A similarly small molecule present in exhaled breath is carbon monoxide, which is not only a biomarker of cigarette smoking but has also been suggested to reflect ongoing oxidative stress/antioxidant defense. The scope of this review is the exciting field of exhaled monoxides. Since several other biomarkers have also been studied in the exhaled breath this review will provide a brief introduction to them.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathophysiology, National Koranyi Institute for Pulmonology, Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Balázs
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Antus
authors.forename: Ildikó
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Horváth